Get more printing from your Brother Ink Cartridges

A short description of a simple hack for Brother printer cartridges. It doesnt damage your printer and will make your cartridges last another hundred or so pages after the printer says 'replace cartridge' and won't print anymore.

In the back of the printer is a light sensor used to see how much ink is left in the cartridge. By blocking the window into the cartridge with tape, the printer is fooled into thinking there is a full cartridge instead of a nearly empty one.

This saves you money as the printer keeps printing although it is running low on ink. The problem with brother printers are that once the sensor detects 'no ink' it stops you printing, when in reality you have approx 100 pages or more left.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• brother
• printer
• cartridge
• hack
• free
• easy
• simple
• ink
• black
• yellow
• cyan
• magenta
• cheap
• workaround
• effective
• tape
• scissors
• optical
• sensor

[bobbydelderfield]

The toner doesn't last as long as you think; if you think it will print 2600 pages, as it says, you have to make sure that there are only about 170 words per page; 5% of the page.

This means that if using graphics or a full page print you won't even get half of that.

[cutterschoicenotmine]

@bobbydelderfield the capacity of these cartridges is low, some you buy have higher capacity than others.

[guy2kool]

Hi, I now have a problem. My Brother Printer stopped printing Cyan altogether. I Googled it and found other people have this problem as well. I followed the vid 4 my printer, and it stopped printing Cyan later (which I don't really know when). I took out the Cyan and removed the black tape, then checked if there's any ounce of ink left, and there wasn't. Would that be a cause for drying out the head? If so, how can I fix it? Please let me know if anyone finds a solution to this problem.THX!

[cutterschoicenotmine]

@guy2kool keep doing cleans until the ink comes through properly. in the menu it should say 'replaced cyan?' answer yes then it should do a clean. print head drying comes about when you have left the printer with no ink in for a time.

[guy2kool]

@cutterschoicenotmine Thanks for your quick reply. However, I've done the cleaning about 15 times now. After about the 10th time, I do a quality print test, and now it only prints the Cyan, and stopped printing black, magenta, or yellow. Weird, I know. I replaced the black ink as well and it didn't help. I've been trying to google this and can't find a thing on this problem. You probably know more about printers than I do... so if anyone knows a solution, PLEASE HELP!!! Thanks again.

[cutterschoicenotmine]

@guy2kool have you left the printer without ink for a long time? sounds like your head is blocked or one of the lines are blocked. in my previous printers thats when they have met the bin.

[bakerstray]

@TheInkhearty Sounds like the head or lines have dried up. Time to get a new printer.

[shakyjones]

Great job mate...it worked! keep doing your thing -you save me many EUROS! The mind is a great thing!:~S

[ElenorFinch]

You, my good man, are a life saver.

[TheInkhearty]

my printer does not want to print black and i dont understand how i would cover the ink cartiges i have a MFC 495CW and LC16series i already did a lot clening of black ink took it out and it still had ink soo please Help!!!i dont know what to do

[Bebomb1983]

took out the cyan ink and looked through the window, wtf there was still ink in the cartriage so i googled to find out how to make my ink last and i found this video, im so glad now my ink will last, i have a MFC490CW that uses LC61 ink. Now i just have to make sure i keep the printer head clean and check my ink

[romanon5]

Dude you saved mee lifee thank you :DD

[OStarstarstar]

Smarrtttt!!! Thank you so much!!!

[trevgk]

Thanks, this works great!!! Brother are forcing customers to spend more money by forcing replacement of ALL cartridges, even if you only use BLACK. I used masking tape on the colour cartridges to block the laser sensor. Brother are crooks forcing customers to spend 4 times the money just to print in Black. Brother are as bad as the bankers, thanks again for this logical solution. I dumped my last HP printer because of the same reason.